I had occasion to speak with a high school classmate a few weekends ago. That 20-minute phone call stirred up such a rush of nostalgia that it prompted me to bat out a six-page missive that was originally intended to be posted here as a follow-on to my last post. The more I wrote, the more I decided that the piece was more for me than it was for anyone else, and has been filed away in my folder called "Personal Musings".

In effect, it was an essay on history--my history. And I think it is good to go back and visit history, whether it is your personal history (either through memory or some sort of journal), as well as events that shaped the world around you.

I grew up in a small suburb of Ft. Lauderdale called Lauderhill. The family moved there in August of 1971. At the time, Lauderhill was only starting to grow on the west side of the Florida Turnpike, and we were there to see the beginnings of it. Now, I didn't know squat about history then--I wouldn't take an interest in history for another year or two. All I knew was that the folks on the East side of Lauderhill had been there for a while, while most of us on the West side had only recently arrived--from other areas of the city, from other areas of the county, and, like us, from out of state.

I had a lot to learn.

As time marched on, I started to be aware of the events around me. My first real knowledge of a historic event had to have been the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis. I didn't fully understand what was happening, but I know the story I was seeing captivated me. I didn't really understand the significance of the events until I was a few years older, then it took on a whole different meaning to me.

The next event I recall would have been the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Why? The Oil Crisis. It was a direct result of the war. Again, I still didn't understand the strife between the Arabs and Israelis back then. I soon would, and again, my mind was opened up to the vast amount of history that I did not yet know. 1974 saw Watergate and the Nixon resignation. 1975, the evacuation of Saigon. And so on...

It was about then that I started to make a conscious effort to learn history. On my own, no prompting. I read books. Lots of books. Fiction? Nope, don't need it. I wanted the straight dope, the real stuff. For some unknown reason, my interests focused initially on the Second World War. More specifically, they focused on the air war from 1935 until 1945. I ate the stories up. I read all the books I could. I asked for--and received--Edward Jablonski's massive tome "Airwar" one Christmas, and read it from cover to cover over Christmas break. (If you've never heard of it, it was initially a four-volume set. The version I received was all four volumes bound into one book. It is a big book!)

All of this, of course, fed my interest in making models of all those airplanes I read about. When NBC started airing the show "Baa Baa Black Sheep", I wouldn't miss an episode. I had seen a photo of the F4U Corsair earlier and thought it was the coolest airplane I had ever seen. Those of you who sat through my "Every Model Tells A Story" seminar at the 2016 IPMS/USA National Convention know that finding the "best" model kit of a Corsair became my Great White Whale until about 1981, when I finally laid hands on the Otaki 1/48 scale kit...

Growing up, I was fairly good in school. I had the good fortune of being able to suck up information like a sponge and manage to retain it for quite some time. I was especially good at the Liberal Arts stuff--writing, social studies, history--and I was good working with my hands. On the pure science and math side of the ledger, I did okay, but if you'll recall my post of a few years ago titled "1984", it couldn't quite carry me through Aeronautical Engineering. At a crossroads, my mother reminded me of something that I will never forget. She told me, "Your dilemma is that you have Technical hands and a Liberal Arts mind."

She was, of course, correct. As I considered my path forward, I thought of switching to a History major. But, here's Mom again, reminding me that History majors do one of two things: Teach or work at museums. For peanuts. (My wife, whose undergrad degree is in History, has also reminded me of these facts...)

As much as a career as an historian intrigued me, I fell back on my Technical hands and studied avionics, earned my degrees, and have worked in the industry pretty much ever since. Even when I got laid off in 2009, while I poked around looking at Master's courses in history, I knew that the Siren named aviation would come to me, calling me back into the fold...

Then came last year. Actually, August of 2015--the time we were told that the company was moving the shop from Columbia, and that we could move with it if we wanted to, with everything that entailed. And once again, I began poking around, looking at Master's programs in History. This time, I came to the conclusion that should I head down that road, I'd be 70 years old before I paid off the loans, and would be thrown right back to the bottom of the employment totem pole, making peanuts. Every now and then I still think it would be a cool thing to do, but the mortgage and light bills pull me back to reality.

By the way, my selected field, had I actually enrolled? Middle Eastern History of the 20th Century. It fascinates me.

But I still have that undying curiosity for all things history. It is, to this day, reflected in the books I like to read, in the models that I build, and the places I go. I've written before how I was on an aviation museum kick back in 2012/2013. My last post spoke about how I finally paid a return visit to the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson. For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you see it in my posts--most of them have some historical tidbit that I toss out to people, hoping they'll bite on the nugget and go read further.

Why?

I just find it, well, cool.

What frustrates me is that I don't see a whole lot of young folks who have the same curiosity. For anything, let alone history. It came as a breath of fresh air when a Facebook friend posted that her son wanted to teach history.

While in Mesa, I was able to catch a few hours of ModelZona 2017 at the Commemorative Air Force's Falcon Field location. I thought it funny when I started to bump into people I know, one after the other, within minutes of entering the venue...I was having a difficult time trying to see the show itself!

I thought it was a nice show--not having been there for the whole show, what I did see was well-run. There was a lot of great work on the tables, too many for me to recall right now. Probably the most interesting model I saw was a scratchbuilt 1/48 C-54.

All in all, it was an enjoyable break from work. Thanks and congratulations to the Craig Hewitt chapter of IPMS/USA for putting on such a fine event.

Speaking of model shows, mark your calendars now for the South Carolina Scale Model Mega Show, to be held on Saturday, 23 June 2018, at the Bluff Road Armory in Columbia. It will be a jointly-hosted show between the AMPS Central South Carolina Wildcats and the IPMS/USA Mid-Carolina Swamp Fox Modelers. Details to come...